The Deranged Mind of a Man In Love
by rookanga
Summary: In Victorian London, Arthur Kirkland and Alfred Jones, two novelists, find themselves head-over-heels in sinful love. But a letter from a person Alfred won't speak about leads Arthur to wonder what he is to do: ignore the obvious signs that something is wrong with Alfred for the sake of keeping him near, or do what he thinks to be best for his love, even if it hurts. AU; USUK
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. So I'm beginning a new fic. Sure, why not?**

**Thanks to my beta delusionaldemise. All credit for the title goes to (I strongly suspect) her.**

It was a strange time, the late nineteenth century. So strange, in fact, that it even seemed to me as I was living that what was going on was not reality, but instead some wild imagining made up by a mind not quite clear. And that is the core of our story, mine and Alfred's.

My good friend Alfred F. Jones, a writer of novels who had moved to London from America for reasons he would not reveal, liked to say, "Keep an element of mystery around you at all times, Arthur. Then no one will know what you will do next, donate to charity or begin slicing people up like that fellow in Whitechapel."

Perhaps his words fell short of Shakespearean, but even when he spoke in jest, people listened closely to him. At a bare twenty years of age he had risen to become one of the most prominent authors in the hemisphere, and he knew it. Oh, how he knew it!

When I met him that morning for breakfast in the spring of 1889, he was playful as ever, his cheeks rosy and his eyes alight with inspiration and happiness.

He set out immediately to tease me, a favorite hobby of his. "Hello, Arthur!" he called in the American accent some called droll. I thought it was an inexcusable affront to the English language and told him so often. "You will never guess who I met for a drink last night!"

"Who, Alfred?" I asked, knowing better than to ignore him.

"Francis Bonnefoy!" he responded. "The painter. I think he's wonderful."

My mood immediately turned sour. I hated Francis Bonnefoy, the painter, perhaps unjustly. He was French, from a rich family, had been raised in Paris and summered by the sea with his family during his childhood. He was despicable. His most famous work was and is still _L'amour Sans Complications_, Uncomplicated Love (I thought the title was incredibly cumbersome and terrible, but to the London upper class, everything in French was _très sophistiqué_), which caused an outcry due to the subject matter: it depicted two male lovers naked in bed. He claimed it was a representation of the growing population acting on their desire to engage in that act with other men and said nothing further on the subject, even when pressed. Once acquainted with him in person, it became obvious that he was one such man, or wanted to be.

"Oh? And what did you drink? Scotch and soda?" I muttered.

Alfred laughed as if this was the funniest thing he'd heard since he'd read the latest book by the outlandish comic writer (and a good friend of Alfred's, of course) Mathias Køhler. "Oh, Arthur," he said. "No, of course not. This is Francis. We had a lovely Cabernet."

"Wonderful," I responded. "Now not only have you become a drinker of French wines, but also you and Monsieur Bonnefoy are now on a first name basis."

Alfred laughed again and lifted his arm to place round my shoulders. "Arthur, one must have as many friends as possible. Surely you don't understand, you only have me, after all, but I know that the best way to live your life is through letting go of all formality and abandoning those who disapprove."

Such was Alfred's thinking. I disagreed with nearly everything he ever said, and yet somehow-we worked out.

"Besides," Alfred added, "I have known Francis since I stepped off the boat two years ago. It is not like me calling him by his Christian name is a new thing."

That night Alfred was invited to supper with the musician Roderich Edelstein at his house, and Alfred decided to bring me along, which had apparently been met with excitement from the Edelstein end. I suspected the invitation came from Edelstein's wife, Elizabeth. She was the more social of the two, and thus more disposed to want company for supper.

Also invited was, to my dismay, and certainly Edelstein's as well, Bonnefoy. He arrived fashionably late, as was his style, and entered with a flourishing motion of his cape before dropping it dramatically into the arms of the butler, and went around the table kissing all the guests but me, which irked me greatly, though I suppose I should have been relieved.

To my right was Alfred; to my left Elizabeth had placed Bonnefoy, surely knowing of my dislike for him. She was that sort of character. To Bonnefoy's left was another writer named Gilbert Beilschmidt. He was Alfred's sort of man, but he lacked the kindness that Alfred possessed, the kindness that stopped me from cutting myself out of his life completely. That's not to say he wasn't kind, but he felt threatening to me, and his writing only solidified this feeling. To his left Elizabeth had placed herself, and left of her, at the head of the table, was her husband. Left of Edelstein was who was apparently his old friend, though the pianist looked less than thrilled to see him again. The man in question, a Vash Zwingli of whom I had never heard, appeared to reciprocate this unhappiness. To his left was Mr. Køhler, and to _his_ left was his good friend (Alfred suspected them to be lovers), Lukas Bondevik, the older brother of famed violinist Emil Steilsson Bondevik, and to the left of Mr. Bondevik the Elder was the musician in question. To his left sat the shy Lithuanian composer Toris Laurinaitis. Finally, at the other end of the table was young Feliciano Vargas, a talented painter who, as critics said, "Embodied everything that was beautiful about the Renaissance." I did not see it. In fact, I rather wished Alfred hadn't brought me.

Along with the food (which was excellent, though I could have made better, I'm sure) came hearty conversation, mostly driven by Alfred. He spoke of baseball, his favorite sport, where I prefer cricket, and America and the many ways he claimed it was better than England, but after a few too many glasses of wine he grew mellow and spoke of love with a languid smile.

"I love you all," he murmured. "I do, truly. Even you, Roderich. I love you too. You are all beloved friends of mine."

Everything about him changed in an instant then, from his posture to the expression on his face, even to the way he held his wine glass, and he stared down into the red with what the writers around the table would all describe as "melancholy eyes."

"Indeed," he continued. "I love you all so much, and I need to love you, as my brother is not here with me. Who shall I love if not my brother? All of you. I love you because my brother is not here."

His speech was beginning to run in circles, so I stood and said to Edelstein, "Excuse us," and told the butler to call us a cab.

"I am fine," Alfred grumbled as he told the cabby his address.

"I did not know your brother was dead."

Alfred looked at me, a smile on his face, though this one was much dimmer than his usual. "My brother is not dead."

"Oh?" I said, surprised. "The way you spoke at dinner made it seem that way."

He brushed me off with a flick of his hand which, because of the drink he'd consumed, swatted me across the nose. "Don't be silly, Arthur. I only meant that he is in America still, and that I miss him greatly."

"You do not speak about your brother very much," I remarked, quickly amended by a, "Not that I care, but what is his name?"

"Matthew," replied Alfred, leaning his head against the cushion and sighing, the type of sigh only an artist can make sound dreamy. "Matthew Williams." Before I could ask why they didn't share a surname, he added, "I changed my name after I left home. It used to be Williams."

I supposed at the time that it was my natural need for truth that drove me to ask this question, not my concern for Alfred, but I asked, "What happened between you and your family to make you want to change your name?"

Alfred looked at me then, and this time his smile was more than dim; it was downright sad. I thought (and hoped) that the wine would make Alfred answer me honestly, but he just said, "Arthur, sometimes there are things even _you_ don't need to know."

I felt he was making fun of me, and this combined with not receiving the desired answer caused me to say a bit crossly, "Are you making fun of me, you twat?"

Laughing, his mood suddenly brightened, Alfred said, "Yes, a bit. But I am mostly telling you what I really think. Don't press further, Arthur."

There was nothing threatening or intimidating or anything of the sort in the way he said those last four words. They were, in fact, spoken as if he were making happy, trivial, light dinner conversation, but as I had known Alfred fairly intimately for nearly sixteen months now, I knew that when speaking insignificantly he was really at his most serious.

I did not speak to Alfred of his family again on that carriage ride, but he spoke and spoke and spoke, happily, of what he had wanted to say at the dinner but wasn't able to due to me 'rudely interrupting his beauteous talk of love,' as he put it. But what he spoke of seemed more fit to two ears only, and those of a good friend, rather than a large party of eleven others.

"Love is everywhere, Arthur, and it shifts and changes. I think Mrs. Edelstein is no longer in love with Mr. Edelstein, and has a new love."

"Who?" I asked.

"Why, Gilbert, of course," Alfred responded. "I saw the way they looked at each other. And did you not hear Gilbert call her 'Elizabeta'? Not only are they close, as Elizabeta is a more Hungarian name than Elizabeth, I would be willing to say that she has told him her given name. Now why would he call her by the name her parents gave her when her husband does not?" My friend did not smile then, though he did not look unhappy. "They are sleeping together."

I was dumbstruck. I did not know what to say.

"Every morning," Alfred continued, switching subjects as he was disposed to do, and staring up at the night sky, "at six, a young man of perhaps sixteen and a young lady of around the same age, though in appearance much younger, meet near my apartment and whisper sweet words of love to each other. Is that not adorable?"

"Adorable," I murmured, thinking that this young couple of Alfred's was, at least partially, made up (how else would he know all this?).

"It is!" he exclaimed, snapping out of Contemplation and entering Enthusiasm. "Young love is wonderful! I wish I had had _une petite copine_ when I was sixteen."

"And now you are speaking French too." I tugged at the sleeve of my jacket. "Brilliant."

He did not notice my sarcasm, or pretended not to, anyway. "We are here!" he shouted suddenly, and indeed the four-wheeler was slowing. I could see Alfred's building a bit down the street.

Ignoring the hand that was offered to him by the cabby, a thin older man with his cap pulled down so low all I could see of his face were his crooked teeth (they were grotesque-overlapping and broken in a way that looked improbably like yellow butterflies), Alfred used my arm to steady himself as he got out of the carriage.

"Excuse me," Alfred said to the cabby, "but I seem to have forgotten my keys. Would you mind terribly knocking on that door there?" He motioned toward his building. "The owner will answer, not to worry. You won't wake him either; as far as I know he doesn't sleep."

The cabby nodded once, a little curtly, and walked to Alfred's door.

We were practically alone on the street. Alfred had not let go of my hand. He glanced over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze. His eyes were on the cabby's back. I scarcely had time to wonder why he was staring so intently on the man, a pointless servant, when he leaned forward, tilting his face ever so slightly upward, as he was on the street and I was in the carriage still, and pressed his lips softly against mine.

I was stupefied-unable to speak. I couldn't even take hold on a single thought that was in my head, though I felt the presence of thousands.

Alfred pulled away and smiled once more, as softly as his kiss had been. "We are so young, Arthur. Let's be in love."


	2. Chapter 2

I was understandably shell-shocked the remainder of the night and well into the morning. As the cabby continued on to my home, he noticed my state and asked, "Everything alright, Mister?"

He had a strange accent: half cockney, half Scottish. I nodded absently and focused on the puzzle of the man's accent, but I was soon distracted again by thoughts of the kiss I had shared with Alfred.

I forwent any nighttime rituals I had that night and collapsed into bed without changing into pajamas or the like. Sleep was long in coming, however; I kept thinking of Alfred, how his lips had felt on mine, why he had done what he did, what I thought about it.

Much as it ashamed me, as I continuously rubbed my fingers over my lips, running them over every contour and wondering what Alfred had felt, I knew I wanted another chance to experience a kiss from him.

The question now was whether it was Alfred I wanted, or any man. I cared for Alfred, I knew this. But did I love him as he seemed to love me?

I thought Alfred's feelings were true. He had said, "We are so young, Arthur. Let's be in love," to me, which could suggest that he was pursuing a relationship with me to experience the young love he had admitted to wanting, but I did not think Alfred was like that.

At once I found myself remembering all the moments I had shared with Alfred. Right from the beginning, being with him had made me happier that I was usually, or maybe had ever been. I loved how in a period of half an hour his smiles could have such a wide gradient. There was so much to discover about Alfred, and I wanted to know it all. I wanted to spend the rest of my life unraveling the mystery Alfred was so intent on keeping about himself through encountering every bit of him. Alfredian immersion. It was not curiosity. I knew curiosity,and this went beyond that.

But I was a loyal subject of the Queen, and this...what I wanted, it was against the law. I could not be with Alfred, that much was clear to me now. So I slept.

The next morning a telegram arrived for me from Alfred. It read:

LAST NIGHT. MUST DISCUSS. MEET ME AT THE PORTLAND AT FOUR. AL

The Portland was Alfred's Gentleman's Club. He went there to make friends and gamble. He had bullied me into getting a membership, but I rarely went, as Alfred's near-constant winnings at billiards and unstoppable chatter with everyone in the vicinity irked me, but now I thought nothing of that, and only knew I should meet him there, hoping seeing him in person would make me reconsider what I had realized during the night. And perhaps his telegram meant he had reconsidered as well.

Not so. He came towards me with a look of longing and apprehension on his face.

He began by apologizing. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice even, though I sensed this was difficult for him. "I should not have been so forward. I regret my actions."

I opened my mouth to reply, to tell him that it was good that he had not meant what he did, because I was a loyal subject of the Queen and would be forced to turn him in when he lifted his head from its bowed position and stared into my eyes. Though a cool blue in color, they seemed to burn hotter than fire at that moment.

"No, actually," he added. "I don't regret it. I showed you how I felt, Arthur. There is nothing so pure as young love, in my opinion. If you can't see that, then you don't deserve to call yourself an artist."

He lowered his voice, still determined, but knowing not to allow people to listen to his rant. "It's alright if you don't feel the same way about me as I do about you. I understand. But tell me _now_, Arthur. I don't want to become like Gilbert, forever loving someone he cannot have. So tell me, Arthur. Do you love me too?"

"I am a loyal subject of the Queen," I protested, but the words were spoken without much conviction. I did love Alfred. I knew this and, while an expert at resisting temptation, found that I could not keep myself from saying, "I love you, Alfred."

The smile that lightened his face, a joyful one that smoothed the crease from his brow and made him look so boyish and happy made me certain that there was nothing more important in this world than Alfred, not the Queen, not England, not even the whole of the world. After that moment, I thought there was nothing I would not do for Alfred. Later, as my inner turmoil kept me sleepless, and what I wanted battled what I thought was right, I would come to realize that sometimes it is necessary to be selfish. Sometimes it is the only thing that can save us from ourselves or, as was in our case, Alfred from himself.

It was a happy time for me, that spring, despite the habit that the frog had of interrupting my time with Alfred.

We didn't tell anyone of our relationship; that much was understood. We could not trust anyone with that knowledge, open-minded as they may have been.

Elizabeth had enjoyed the first so much she made the dinner parties a weekly event, always with the same people. I even grew to not mind them as much. It was easy to be jovial when Alfred was holding my hand under Roderich Edelstein's mahogany dinner table.

That summer Alfred rented us a room in a house by the sea, where the sheets were laundered for you, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner served, where we passed the days taking walks together, and the nights making love. The people at the house had had enough Londoners staying there that when they came across anything suspicious they simply removed it from their minds.

When it rained Alfred and I would sit in respective corners of the room and write. We both preferred to write with the background noise of rain on a roof, but this rain was not similar to London rain at all. It seemed to bring with it only cleanliness, so when Alfred pushed his chair back unceremoniously and announced that he had hit writer's block on his currently untitled novel-in-progress, I too took a break from writing and we went outside to feel the cool droplets on our face and be young and carefree.

I have never felt happiness like that since.

It was October when I received the letter. I had arrived home from a meeting with my publisher, Alfred had announced his arrival at my apartment today the night before, so I collected my mail, made myself a cup of tea, and sat down to wait for him.

Most of my mail was simply letters from my creditors or my publisher, and some from fellows who had read some of my fiction and found it necessary to write me. But one letter was out of the ordinary. It was from a James Williams residing in Boston, in America. I did not recognize the name or the address. I thought at first it was another piece of fan mail, so I opened it without hesitation or suspicion.

The letter read as such:

_Dear Mr. Kirkland,_

_I do hope you understand the utter necessity of compliance to the request I will make in this letter. My name is James Williams, and for many many years I have been residing anxiously at my home in Boston without either of my sons._

_My twin sons were named Matthew and Alfred Williams. You are familiar with the younger, Alfred. Indeed, I believe you two are close friends. You know him as Alfred F. Jones. He has changed his name, which hurts me more than I can express, but even though he no longer wishes to be associated with me, he must._

_I tried to do my best raising my two sons. Their mother died in labor, you see, but other than a motherly presence in their lives I don't believe they were lacking for anything. Then, when the boys were thirteen, they caught pneumonia. Alfred, always the stronger of the two, managed to fight it off. But my Matthew lost his life from that malady._

_Alfred has not been the same since. For years and years, he was convinced that Matthew was there, that they spent time together like they always had, with one sole difference: Matthew never went outside. I am a psychologist by profession, and I realized that Alfred was suffering. He missed his brother dearly, as I missed my son and some of the servants missed their kind young master. But to think that he was seeing a corporeal form of his brother; now that was plainly frightening._

_For years I worried for Alfred's mental wellbeing, even though a few months after Matthew died he told me sadly that Matthew had stopped coming to him. I was terribly excited when Alfred published his first short story at just seventeen. I thought that by writing fiction, he could express the emotions he still felt about Matthew's death._

_Not so, unfortunately. Alfred was still convinced that Matthew was alive, even that he was in the house, and that it was _I _who was keeping him from his brother. Mr. Kirkland, you are not a father, so I do not think you can understand how it feels when your child tells you he hates you. This is what Alfred said one awful evening and worse, he looked frightened of me. That he feared me, it was too much. I'm afraid I said things that I didn't mean that night, and Alfred left. I have not seen him since._

_I found out when Alfred published another story that he was residing in London. Hoping a change of scenery would be good for him, I did not pursue him, though I have kept up with his life through all the information I can get. I saw that he had you as a good friend, along with others, so for a while I was reassured._

_But not long ago a friend of mine told me he was going to London. He has asked not to be named; he was around in the months after Matthew's death, and I dare say he's afraid that side of Alfred will be directed at him if he finds out. That friend is well-known in some circles and was invited to a dinner party at the house of Roderich Edelstein. There he saw that though Alfred was perhaps more at ease in London than he had been in Boston, he still believes that his brother is alive._

_I ask of you, sir, as you are his friend, to please bring Alfred back to Boston. He will be receiving treatment and, though he will not admit it, will need me very much. And I too, need him. It will be difficult for all three of us, but please, if you care for my son at all, do what you can._

_Sincerely,_

_James Williams_

I was agitated. I didn't know what to think, or to do. I did not think Alfred was mad, but this was his father, apparently a psychologist. Who was I to trust?

There came a tapping at my window. I quickly folded the letter and put it in the drawer of my desk, then went to the door to let Alfred in.

"Hello!" he cried, happy as can be, spreading his arms and wheeling them about.

"Watch it," I muttered. "You'll break something."

He just laughed, but thankfully chose to lower his arms and stand in one place. "So what was that thing you were looking at?"

"Nothing," I lied. "Just a letter from my mumsie."

Alfred snorted, obviously trying to keep his laughter down. "Your _mumsie_?" he said in a terrible impersonation of me (It is unethical, really, to speak in such a fake British accent.) "Oh, just goh'a leh'uh frum your mumsie, 'ave you?"

"Oh, stop it," I said.

He grabbed my hand. "Come on!" he said, thankfully dropping the accent. "Let us go for a walk, shall we?"

"Alright." I let him pull me out the door, but didn't listen to a word he was saying. I was too busy thinking about the letter I had received from his father, and what I was to do about it.

**I meant to update sooner, I did. But I've been distracted by the Balcony Series by ByeByeBirdie (Lily/James from HP), so I haven't finished the third chapter yet. And considering there's three parts with like fifty chapters each, and I'm only on the twenty-third chapter of the first part, it probably won't be finished as long as this keeps up. I'm also in school from dawn 'til dusk, so I haven't got much time. But I wanted to post this chapter already, so here you go.**

**My beta is delusionaldemise. I give her my sincere thanks.**

**Review?**


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